


just medals and scars

by endlessnighttimesky



Series: hero of war [1]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Airports, Alternative Universe - Soldier, Bars and Pubs, Domestic, Established Relationship, Goodbyes, M/M, References to Past Alcoholism/Alcohol Abuse, References to Past Drug Use, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlessnighttimesky/pseuds/endlessnighttimesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ll be back before you know it,” Frank says and grabs Gerard’s hand. Their fingers intertwine almost automatically.</p><p>“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Gerard presses his fingertips into the valleys between Frank’s knuckles.</p><p>“I’ll always come back to you,” Frank promises. “In one way or another.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	just medals and scars

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song _Hero of War_ by Rise Against.

When Gerard wakes up, it’s still dark outside, and he can hear the rain smattering against the windowsill. Beside him, Frank is still asleep, on his stomach with a hand shoved under his pillow, covers pushed down to his waist. He’s got one leg drawn up, knee poking out between the sheets, and the other one stretched behind him and a little to the side, foot dangling off the edge of the bed.

In their haste to get their hands on each other, they forgot to pull down the blinds, so the room isn’t pitch black like it usually is. Warm, golden light is spilling in through the window, courtesy of the lampposts guarding the street outside. They cast a honey-colored glow over the bed and Frank’s back, illuminating his tattoos – the guns, the pumpkin, the letters at the back of his neck. With a careful hand, Gerard starts tracing them, brushing his fingers over first the K and then the E until he reaches the last H, before moving on to the features of the pumpkin, its slanted eyes and evil grin.

The only thing he doesn’t touch is the scar, round and pink on Frank’s left shoulder. The first time he did it, Frank flinched. Gerard has kept his hands away ever since.

Frank barely stirs, just lets out a little sigh that Gerard wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t listen for it. As it is, he can barely even hear it through the sound of the rain, drip-drip-dripping onto the fire escape outside. It’s almost loud enough to make him think he left the window open, but he’s not sure. It doesn’t really matter – it’s not like he can be bothered to get up and check, anyway, so he just continues running his fingers over Frank’s back, up and down the slopes and hills of his spine, until he reaches the guns. He doesn’t trace their lines, just presses the palm of his hand against them, flat across the small of his back. Unconsciously, Frank pushes back into the touch, but at this hour, it might as well just be Gerard’s imagination.

“You should sleep.”

So he didn’t just imagine it, then. “I didn’t know you we’re awake.”

“Me neither.” Frank’s voice is low and rough, barely above a whisper. “I thought it was a dream.”

“I wish it was,” Gerard says. He doesn’t meet Frank’s eyes.

“If it is, then I don’t want to wake up.”

“You don’t have to. It can be like this, always.”

“You know as well as I do that it can’t, Gerard.”

Instead of finally looking at Frank, Gerard just closes his eyes. A moment passes in silence, and then he’s mumbling, “Don’t go.”

“You know I can’t stay.” It’s what he always says. Gerard hates it – mostly because he knows it’s true.

“You said you didn’t want to wake up.”

“If this was a dream. But it’s not.”

“I wish it was,” Gerard says again.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Frank says and grabs Gerard’s hand. Their fingers intertwine almost automatically.

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Gerard presses his fingertips into the valleys between Frank’s knuckles.

“I’ll always come back to you,” Frank promises. “In one way or another.”

“But I want you as _you_ ,” Gerard frets, and Frank immediately knows what’s coming. He doesn’t try to stop it, though. “I want you here, in bed, and I want to wake up next to you in the morning, and I want you at the kitchen table drinking all my coffee because you’re the only one I let do that, and I want you next to me on the couch watching shitty horror movie remakes, and I want you on the floor playing your guitar or reading or doing whatever the fuck you want, because it doesn’t matter as long as you’re there, and it’s so fucking selfish and I hate myself for it but I just – “ He trails off, and then he’s crying, not even attempting to form words anymore. They aren’t really needed, anyway.

“C’mere,” Frank whispers and loops an arm around Gerard’s shoulders, pulling him to his chest. He frees a corner of the covers to wipe his tears away, smoothing the fabric carefully over his cheeks.

Wrapping an arm around Frank’s back, Gerard pushes even closer. “I don’t – I don’t want you coming back in a casket, Frankie,” he mumbles into the hollow of Frank’s throat, lips dry and soft.

“I won’t,” Frank says.

“You can’t promise me that.”

“I can try.” It’s all he can say, because it’s all he can do. Anything else is for fate to decide.

“But what if it’s not enough?”

“Then it’s not.” Frank hates being so seemingly okay with the idea of dying – wishes it will never be more than that, an idea. At least not until he’s gray-haired and wrinkly, and he and Gerard have retired to some little beach house on the shore, grandkids running around their garden.

But they’re not there yet, and won’t be for a long time, and so death should stay away. Instead, Frank’s just willingly stepping closer to it every day, while Gerard keeps the same distance he always has since he got clean, not just steps but _miles_ behind Frank. He wonders how much closer Gerard would get if he died. If, just maybe, he’d go all the way.

“I’m sorry,” Gerard says once they’ve been quiet for a while. His breathing is a little steadier and his cheeks are almost completely dry, and Frank appreciates the distraction – he’s been down that morbid road enough times already.

“It’s okay,” Frank says, because it is – he doesn’t blame Gerard, and he never will. He’s allowed these moments, just like Frank is allowed to postpone his packing until the latest possible day, and almost miss his flight because he won’t let go of Gerard for ages before boarding. If Frank is allowed that, then Gerard can have this.

It’s not even that common an occurrence – for the most time Gerard doesn’t think about it, just tries to savor the time he has with Frank while he’s still at home, but then these nights sneak up on him, and he has to wrap himself around Frank so tight he’s not sure they’re even two bodies anymore, or call him if it's one of those unfortunate nights he isn't there, because while letters are nice and all, nothing can really beat the sound of your loved one’s voice, even if it’s filtered through a static-riddled satellite phone.

After a while of listening to the rain beating down on the cars parked on the street below their window – it could’ve been five minutes, but just as easily thirty, or an entire hour – Frank notices Gerard’s breathing has settled, now back to slow and regular, just like his heartbeat. Looking at his face, Frank sees his eyes have fallen shut, lips parted just the slightest. It reminds him of all the mornings he _hasn’t_ spent miles away in a desert, but right here, beside Gerard in their bed, curled up tight against his chest or wrapped around his back.

He wishes tomorrow morning would be like that.

§ § §

It’s not.

“Gee?” Frank’s voice is small, tentative, and Gerard doesn’t want to listen to it.

“No,” is all he says, rolling away from Frank and curling in on himself.

Frank follows and wraps himself around Gerard’s back, lips pressed to his shoulder. “You don’t have to drive me. I can take the subway.”

“You hate the subway,” Gerard mumbles.

“You hate this.”

Finally, Gerard turns around, looking at Frank with solemn, tired eyes. “I’m not leaving you. Not until I absolutely have to.”

Frank smiles a little. “Okay,” he says, and kisses Gerard, careful and chaste on the lips. When he goes to pull back, Gerard won’t let him go, and instead just pushes closer, winding his arms around Frank’s back.

“Tell me we have time.”

Lifting his head, Frank squints at the alarm clock on Gerard’s nightstand. “Five minutes, tops.”

“Better than nothing,” Gerard mumbles distractedly, and then he’s back, attacking Frank with lips and hands and body, barely letting him breathe.

For some reason, it reminds Frank of when they met.

§ § §

He didn’t know when he waited for Mikey at Bob’s bar that he was bringing Gerard, but then he showed up with a guy trudging along after him who looked all kinds of nervous, dressed in black and hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, head bowed down and black hair falling in his face.

Mikey had told Frank about Gerard before – that he was an artist who’d studied at SVA – but he never told him about the drinking, or the pills, or the cocaine. When Frank asked Mikey about it later, he said it wasn’t his thing to tell.

But maybe he could’ve at least told him that asking to buy Gerard a beer wouldn’t really be the best conversation started.

“I – I don’t drink,” Gerard stammered, trying to hide his flaming cheeks behind his hair and failing.

Frank just shrugged. “Hey, man, whatever works for you. Anything else, then?”

At that, Gerard actually looked up, a tiny, tentative smile on his face. “Um, Diet Coke?”

“Diet Coke it is. Bob, Diet Coke and two beers!” Frank assumed that if Gerard was in a bar, then he was at least okay with other people drinking, and so it wouldn’t matter if he got a beer for himself.

They started talking after that, him and Mikey and Gerard, about anything that came up – movies and music, mixed with Frank’s questions about Gerard’s art and how Mikey’s job at Eyeball was coming along, and then Alicia called and Mikey had to go, but Frank and Gerard were already involved in a heated discussion about – Mikey wasn’t even sure. Gerard looked happy, though, flailing his hands about and almost bouncing in his seat, and Frank looked like he’d never seen anything more fascinating than Gerard speaking.

It wasn’t until after Mikey left that they got into the topic of Gerard’s addiction. Frank didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but he never for one second doubted that Mikey knew about what Gerard was telling him. He’d heard enough from Mikey to know they weren’t the kind of siblings that kept things from each other, especially not things like these.

It started when Gerard and Mikey’s grandma died. Elena was a big part of their lives, but more of Gerard’s than Mikey’s, since it had been her who taught Gerard how to paint, who bought him his first sketchbook, who was the first Gerard told about his acceptance to SVA.

When she died, it hit him the hardest.

It started with the pills his therapist prescribed – Xanax and sleeping pills, and after a while, Jack Daniel’s to wash those down. He didn’t drink much at home – usually went out to bars and clubs, and so it was just a matter of time before someone offered him something heavier to take the pain away. And Gerard _was_ in pain, so he nodded his head yes and snorted a line, and when he went back to the club a week later, another.

It continued like this for almost six months before anyone started noticing. Living on his own in the city, without a roommate and with his family still in Belleville, it was easy to keep his habit a secret, especially since he kept his using to the clubs. Storage, though, that was another thing, and so when Mikey came over one day and found plastic baggies filled with white powder while searching for a comic, questions were to follow, and eventually, help.

“I went to rehab for three months,” he told Frank. “Group therapy, twenty-four-hour supervision, the shit. Been clean ever since.”

“Isn’t that almost a year now?”

“Three hundred and sixty five days on Tuesday,” Gerard replied, shy smile playing over his lips.

“Damn,” Frank said, intelligent as he is. “Seriously, that’s – that’s amazing. I bet Mikey’s proud of you.”

Gerard blushed. “Yeah. Especially now, like – well, this is my first time in a bar since I got clean.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm. S’why he was so reluctant to leave.” Looking up at Frank, Gerard smiled. “He trusts you, though.”

“Well, I’m fucking honored. You’re awesome, man, if I’d known I’d totally bugged Mikey into bringing you sooner.”

Gerard blushed again. “You’re pretty fucking awesome yourself, Frankie.”

§ § §

“Frankie?”

Like a bucket of cold water over his head, Gerard’s voice brings Frank back to the present. “Yeah?”

“What were you thinking about?” Gerard asks.

Frank shrugs. “Just stuff.” He looks over at the alarm clock. “I have to get out of bed soon if I want to make my flight. Shower with me?”

Gerard groans and closes his eyes, rolling onto his back, arm thrown over his face.

Frank can’t help but grin a little. “You said you wouldn’t let me out of your sight until it was absolutely necessary, you know,” he says as he leans down to kiss and bite at Gerard’s neck.

“Fuck you,” Gerard says, but when Frank’s gets up to pull him out of bed and into the bathroom, he doesn’t resist.

§ § §

The only good thing about early flights, Frank supposes, is that airports are usually fairly empty at five in the morning. Crowds make Gerard nervous, but he always insists on going anyway, so Frank didn’t feel too guilty when he booked the 6 AM flight.

“I love you more than I hate mornings,” Gerard told him once. Frank still counts it as one of the best compliments he’s ever received.

After going through security, Gerard heads for Starbucks immediately. They always get him a gate pass – not too hard when your boyfriend’s a soldier – so he can stay with Frank all up until boarding, instead of having to leave Frank to wait alone. By now, he knows the layout of the airport like he does the back of his own hand, and Frank can’t help but hate himself for it a little.

“One good thing about this, I guess,” Gerard mumbles as they stand in line, waiting to order.

“Free coffee?”

“Mm-hm.”

Frank still doesn’t know who actually pays for his coffee, if it’s on the house or if there’s some guy of girl out there sustaining his and Gerard’s caffeine addiction privately, but ever since he first showed up at the counter in his uniform, he hasn’t paid for a single cup.

When they reach the counter, Frank orders for them, and replies with a smile and a polite, “You’re welcome,” when the cashier thanks him for serving. Gerard feels stupidly proud, even with the angry, miserable mess of emotions resting heavily in his stomach, because he really is – he’ll never stop admiring Frank for what he does, no matter how much it hurts sometimes.

On their way to find a quiet corner in the lounge to drink their coffee, Gerard notices they way people’s eyes follow Frank as they navigate through the rows of seats. He’s not sure if Frank doesn’t see it or just doesn’t care – most likely he’s gotten used to it, since he never wears civilian clothes while traveling to and from deployment. On his way home, he’s not allowed to take his uniform off until he’s released from duty, which isn’t until he hits a U.S. airport where his paperwork can be signed by a military official, and flying out, it’s just a hassle to bring them, since he’ll have to change somewhere along the way, and then they’ll just sit there in his bags for six months, taking up space. Basically, it’s not worth it.

“You’ll get back in time for my birthday, right?”

Gerard’s voice startles Frank, and it takes him a few seconds to realize what he’s asked, but when he does, he’s quick to say yes.

“It’s just a six month deployment, so hopefully I’ll be back just in time.”

Gerard fiddles with the lid of his coffee cup, face hidden by his hair. “Hopefully,” he repeats, voice dull.

Curling an arm around Gerard’s shoulders, Frank pulls him to his chest. Mouth pressed to his hair, he mumbles, “I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep. But I’ll try, okay?”

“Yeah,” Gerard says, and his voice is faint, just barely there. A second later, he’s got his face buried in Frank’s jacket, shoulders hitching slightly. When he pulls back, his eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, and there are dark little stains where his tears have been soaked up by the fabric.

“I’m sorry,” he says, bringing a hand up to wipe them away, but Frank gets there first, carefully smoothing his thumbs over the soft skin under Gerard’s eyes.

“Don’t be,” Frank says and lets one hand fall down to wrap around the back of Gerard’s neck, and then they’re kissing, pecking chastely at each other’s lips.

“Calling all passengers aboard flight AAL605 – please go to Gate A7 for boarding. All passengers aboard flight AAL605, please go to Gate A7 for boarding.” The tinny voice disappears with the crackle of speakers.

Gerard’s shoulders slump and he buries his face in Frank’s neck. “Frankie...”

“I have a first class seat, I don’t have to go on just yet,” Frank mumbles, rubbing his hand over Gerard’s leather-clad back.

Lifting his head from Frank’s shoulder, Gerard looks up at him, hesitant. “Can I kiss you?”

Frank smiles fondly – why Gerard still asks sometimes is beyond him, but he has to admit, it’s pretty cute. “C’mere,” he says, cupping Gerard’s jaw with one hand and the back of his neck with the other.

They try to keep it PG, and hopefully succeed, but it’s obvious from Gerard’s restless hands that he wants more. They’re everywhere, moving over Frank’s back and then his chest, going up his sides and down again to push up under his jacket, only to pull back out and finally settle between their chests, playing with Frank’s dog tags.

Cupping them in his hand, he looks down at them, resting his forehead against Frank’s. “I’m proud of you, you know,” he mumbles. “Even when it doesn’t seem like I am.”

“I know you are,” Frank says, because he does know. Gerard told him as much the first time they met, and has done it whenever necessary ever since. And with the way Gerard looks at him sometimes, it’s hard to forget.

“Last call for passengers aboard flight AAL605. All passengers aboard flight AAL605, please go to Gate A7 for boarding.”

Sighing, Frank stands up, grabbing his bag from the floor and throwing it over his shoulder. Gerard stands up, too, and pulls Frank close one last time, hands cupped around his face as he kisses him almost hard enough to bruise.

“I love you,” he whispers as their lips part, voice thick with imminent tears.

“I love you too,” Frank says, pressing a last kiss to Gerard’s lips before he walks away. It takes every ounce of willpower Gerard has to stay where he is and not follow, fists clenched by his sides as he watches Frank disappear around the corner and into the jetway.

§ § §

The bar is quiet when Gerard arrives – they opened only minutes ago, so Bob’s the only one there, standing behind the bar with a rag in his hand and a glass in the other.

“He’s gone again?” he asks.

Nodding, Gerard sits down on a stool, elbows propped on the top of the bar, chin in his hands. He’s got this thousand-mile stare in his eyes, as if he’s the one being sent back and forth between Jersey and Afghanistan.

“You’re not getting any alcohol off me, you know that.”

A smile flickers over Gerard’s face, but it’s so quick that Bob might as well have imagined it. “I know,” he says. “That’s why I come here.”

“You want something else?” Bob asks as he stacks the newly polished glasses on the counter behind him. “Diet Coke?”

“Yeah,” Gerard answers, the slightest of smiles still lingering on his lips. “Diet Coke it is.”


End file.
